Musings on genealogy & family history, mine & others

Have you swabbed your cheek and submitted the little brush to a genetic genealogy testing service, then waited in anticipation for the results? I have and I recommend it to everyone interesting in learning about their “deep ancestry.”

For women, this means testing your mitochondrial DNAor mtDNA, which is passed only from mothers to their children. Both daughters and sons receive it, but only daughters pass it on to their children. This provides a way to learn about your maternal ancestors – your mother’s mother’s mother and so on.

I used the Genographic Projectfrom National Geographic, led by geneticist Spencer Wells. There are many other choices, but we have followed Spencer Wells’ research and wanted to be able to contribute our results to his global database.

The results showed that my maternal ancestry is U5b. This is a subset of U5, thought to be one of the oldest haplogroupsin Europe, estimated at 45,000 years old and clearly predating the arrival of agriculture.

When I compared the specific pattern of genetic changes in my results to other examples online, I found an exact matchin a woman whose female ancestors lived in Haderslev Amt, Denmark, on the Jutland Peninsula. That is an area near the border of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I know my maternal ancestors come from a place that is not far south from this — Wewelsfleth near Itzhoe in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany — so this was not a surprise. It was good confirmation of my female lineage’s geographic origin.

At least its rather recent geographic orgin. The woman from southern Denmark with the exact match to my mtDNAwas born 1 September 1870. That’s less than 150 years ago. Using church records, I have traced my maternal line back to the early 1700s when Metta nee Oldenburg was born in Borsfleth, a village 1.8 miles [2.9 km] from Wewelsfleth, across the Stör Rivernear its merger with the Elbe River. That’s almost 300 years ago.

Can we find evidence of some of the specific locations where our distant genetic cousins lived further back in time using the research on mtDNA? Yes, we can. We can’t discover who they were or prove they were in our direct line of descent, but we know they are our relatives in our genetic clan or subclan.

Focusing on mtDNA haplogroup U, we find research results placing people with this genetic pattern in Europe before the arrival of farmers from the Near East. U5 in particular has been identified in human remains from the Mesolithic in places such as England, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Russia.

In a chart with the recent article “Genetic Discontinuity Between Local Hunter-Gatherers and Central Europe’s First Farmers” by B. Bramanti et al. [Science, Vol. 326, No. 5949. (2 October 2009), pp. 137-140], dates, locations and mtDNA clades for 22 ancient skeletons are given. [Note: the chart is available only in a print copy or online if you have subscription].

The skeletons were found in Germany, Lithuania, Poland and Russia, according to the chart. Dates range from ca. 13,400 calBC [calibrated date B.C.] to ca 2250 calBC. The mtDNA results fall into these clades: U, U4, U5, U5a, U5a1, U5b1, U5b2, K, J and T2e, the most frequent being U5b2 found in 5 of the 22 skeletons.

A few specific examples from this chart provide a glimpse of what such ancient bones can tell us about geographic locations for our ancient ancestors. Given are the genetic clade, location and date:

Another listing of ancient bones that have yielded dates can be found in an easy-to-read chart. Greece, Britain, Germany, and more are included. Here you will find Cheddar Man, an old skeleton from Britain, dated to 9,000 years ago and a U5a. Also shown is Otzi the Iceman, dated to 3,000 years ago and a K1.

On that chart, my U5b is found in two locations in northern Germany. These are:
> c. 2600 BC – corded ware culture site at Eulau, located just to the southwest of Leipzig, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany, which is about 190 miles south of Bremen and Hamburg in northern Germany. This site revealed some genetic evidence of families and one U5b individual.
> c. 1000 BC – Lichtenstein Cave, a Bronze Age archaeological site near Dorste, Lower Saxony, Germany, where nine ancient skeletons were U5b. This is in northwest Germany.

In that chart above, U5b is also found in skeletons from Medieval Anglo-Saxon England, not surprising as the Angles and Saxonscame to England from Denmark and northwest Germany, the area of my maternal ancestors described above.

Another detailed chart of ancient Eurasian DNA with dates and many location can be found here.] Interesting, a U5b individual has been found in Leicester, England, dated to 300-400 A.D. in the Romano-British period.

Conclusion

Overall, the ancient bones in the B. Bramanti et al. study give evidence of Haplogroup U, U4 and U5 ancestors in Germany and nearby areas thousands of years ago, giving those in these genetic lineages a sense of our deeper family history and genealogy. The other charts provide similar insights for many other mtDNA haplogroups.

And I can see some of the specific locations and cultures of my ancient U5b maternal ancestors and cousins as much as 5,000 years ago. Genetic genealogy can indeed reveal deep ancestry!

[Note: A detailed background discussion of the archeaological samples used in the B. Bramanti et al. study and the locations were they were found is available online here.]